What Is Really Funny: Humor Ahead of Its Time in the Twentieth Century American Novel Timothy Baffoe Governors State University
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Governors State University OPUS Open Portal to University Scholarship All Student Theses Student Theses Fall 2016 What is Really Funny: Humor Ahead of Its Time in the Twentieth Century American Novel Timothy Baffoe Governors State University Follow this and additional works at: http://opus.govst.edu/theses Part of the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Baffoe, Timothy, "What is Really Funny: Humor Ahead of Its Time in the Twentieth Century American Novel" (2016). All Student Theses. 88. http://opus.govst.edu/theses/88 For more information about the academic degree, extended learning, and certificate programs of Governors State University, go to http://www.govst.edu/Academics/Degree_Programs_and_Certifications/ Visit the Governors State English Department This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses at OPUS Open Portal to University Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Student Theses by an authorized administrator of OPUS Open Portal to University Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. What is Really Funny: Humor Ahead of Its Time in the Twentieth Century American Novel By Timothy Baffoe B.A., Governors State University, 2007 THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts, With a Major in English Advisors: Dr. Christopher White Dr. Rashidah Jaami’ Muhammad Dr. Rosemary E. Johnsen Governors State University University Park, IL 60484 December 2016 Copyright © 2016 Timothy Baffoe Governors State University ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DEDICATION To my parents, You planted seeds of knowledge and its pursuit in me from the time I could talk, often against my wishes. I did not appreciate that until decades later, but know that I am forever grateful for that, and you are loved. And to my students, Not a year in ten in my classroom has gone by without you reminding me that there is no one way to read a text. You constantly open my eyes to new ways of thinking about our readings, and you consistently refuel my desire to pursue new outlets and avenues to learning with you and on my own. Thank you. Baffoe i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My first acknowledgment goes to my English advisor, Dr. Christopher White, for his help throughout the entire process of completing this thesis. From my initial proposal to the final product, Dr. White was more than supportive while giving me the utmost free range to come up with a paper on American literary humor the route of which I wasn’t even quite sure when I began. The germination of this thesis began with our study of Nabokov’s Lolita in his American Literature graduate seminar course, and had I not been in that class or read that novel, this thesis never would have been. Dr. Rashidah Jaami’ Muhammad has been my instructor in more of my college English courses than any other, and I have thus crafted my academic writing under her watch more than anyone. Several of the texts studied in her classes have become some of my favorites, notably two novels that I teach in my own classroom—The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz from her World Literature graduate seminar course, which I would not be teaching had she not exposed me to it, and, of course, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. Though I had read TEWWG multiple times prior, as I studied it through a postcolonial and feminist (womanist) lens in her Rhetorical and Critical Theory seminar course it dawned on me that this novel had a distinct comedic blueprint that I wanted to explore further. When I mentioned that as a side note to the tasks at hand in that class, Dr. Muhammad encouraged me to pursue an examination of the novel’s humor, leading to the chapter that follows. Baffoe ii I was not expecting to find the works in Dr. Rosemary Johnsen’s British Literature seminar course all that provocative—a silly prejudice against British lit on my part. By the end of the course I had written a paper on George Harvey Bone created by this wonderful and new-to-me author Patrick Hamilton in Hangover Square. I found the paper a challenging yet thoroughly fun task—I mean, I got to examine how booze played a part literally and figuratively in the biology and psychology of a pathetic yet sympathetic drunk and his darkly comic saga. I was pleasantly wrong in my presuppositions, and Dr. Johnsen’s course led to my first graduate level literary analysis involving humor. While this thesis does not involve any British texts, Dr. Johnsen’s use of Hamilton’s work definitely helped my comedic literary analysis. Baffoe iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION: ...………………………………………………………………………………… i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: ...……………………………………...…………………………….. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS: ..…………………………………………………………………….. iv ABSTRACT: ……………………………………………………………………………………. v CHAPTER 1: Introduction ………………….……………………………………………………1 CHAPTER 2: “Come and See”: Janie Crawford’s and Zora Neale Hurston’s Comic Achievement in Their Eyes Were Watching God …………………………….... 15 CHAPTER 3: Rape Jokes: The Postmodern Standup Comedy of Lolita ……………………… 51 CHAPTER 4: Unstuck in Time and Live from Tralfamadore: Slaughterhouse-Five as Standup Act and Spastic Sketch Comedy Program ……………………………………... 76 CHAPTER 5: Conclusion …………………………………………………………………….. 109 REFERENCES: ………………………………………………………………………………. 111 Baffoe iv ABSTRACT This thesis sets out to examine a specific function that humor has played in twentieth century American literature and that is reflective of American culture today— that being a constant testing of boundaries of who and what are allowed to be considered funny. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) gives readers a woman whose struggle for a Black female voice lands her on an informal standup comedy stage. Lolita (1955) by Vladimir Nabokov walks a tightrope of taboo subject matter, encouraging readers to appropriately—though maybe uncomfortably—laugh at the inappropriate, and this decades before such routines like that of Louis C.K. became the norm in clubs and on television specials. Kurt Vonnegut’s antiwar novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) was not only a bridge between the counterculture comics that attacked sacred cows in the 1960s and those who would take the torch toward century’s end but also a forerunner to the sketch comedy programs like Saturday Night Live, The Muppet Show, and Mr. Show that would become cultural TV standard beginning in the 1970s. Certain comedic taboos and sacred cows exist during any period of history, and it is the job of comedians—American authors included—to challenge them in order to break barriers, force social progress, and sometimes resist against taking ourselves or our institutions too seriously. Once those comedic steps are made, we can look back on them as cultural benchmarks often taken for granted in the humor we are accustomed to today. American humor does not seem to get the scholarly attention that some of the other aspects of literary analysis do. There is a lot of subtlety and skill to American Baffoe v fictional humor. But literary humor is seen as mere novelty rather than being appreciated for what it is: a cultural and political tool—a particularly necessary one in a tumultuous twentieth century fraught with global wars and domestic sociopolitical struggles. Twentieth century American novelistic humor prior to the last quarter of the century also shows itself to be a precursor to late-century performance comedy that would become the norm. Hurston, Nabokov, and Vonnegut were the counterculture comics and Not Ready for Prime Time Players of their day because status quo America wasn’t ready for them. There has always been a quarrel in this country as to what and who is funny. Hurston, Nabokov, and Vonnegut didn’t shy away from that quarrel but chose to meet it head on instead. Baffoe vi Introduction In America, there has always been a quarrel going on as to what or who is really funny. – Thomas Keough (xvii) Miss Hurston voluntarily continues in her novel the tradition which was forced upon the Negro in the theatre, that is, the minstrel technique that makes the "white folks" laugh. –Richard Wright, New Masses book review, 1937 Mr. Nabokov, whose English vocabulary would astound the editors of the Oxford Dictionary, does not write cheap pornography. He writes highbrow pornography. Perhaps that is not his intention. Perhaps he thinks of his book as a satirical comedy and as an exploration of abnormal psychology. Nevertheless, "Lolita" is disgusting. – Orville Prescott, New York Times book review, 1958 “You know what’s really funny? . My books are being thrown out of school libraries all over the country—because they’re supposedly obscene. I’ve seen letters to small-town newspapers that put Slaughterhouse Five in the same class with Deep Throat and Hustler magazine. How could anybody masturbate to Slaughterhouse Five?” –Kurt Vonnegut, “The Art of Fiction No. 64,” The Paris Review, 1977 All hail the opening act. That performer who precedes the name on the marquee who has been deemed worthy enough to keep the audience’s attention and grease the wheels of applause and outward emotion in order that the “big name” find smoother terrain when he or she takes the stage. A performer whose purpose isn’t existence as much as filling idle time. I see three prominent American novels as comedic opening acts of sorts. While their titles and authors are popular, the role they play in American humor goes underappreciated if considered at all. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955), and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse- Five (1969) aren’t typically picked up for a laugh; rather, respective analysis and Baffoe 1 criticism tends to focus on the “big” traditionally academic umbrellas—feminism, author/characters of color, war, class struggle, etc.